No user can login (login loop): Apple Support Communities. So it seems that an update to Microsoft Office 2011 is the cause of this. How disappointing. This must be very frustrating in corporate environments.

Turn off Office Reminders. I had a friend who had two computers and this was annoying to him to have to acknowledge events on two machines. Who knew it was so easy?

Chrome, Internet Explorer Lead Browser Speed Tests. This is an interesting result. Normally with Apple things get faster as the OS updates, but in this case it appears that the Chrome team is making things slightly slower. Honestly I have used all of those versions and the browser is rarely the bottleneck slowing things down.

Macintosh startup – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – StumbleUpon. It is always fun to hear the startup sound. I wonder why Microsoft hasn’t copied that?

The best free open source Mac apps — Reality Distortion: Macs, Mac OS X, and Apple stuff – StumbleUpon. This is an amazing free tool that Microsoft is charging $20 for. I am going to try this tonight and see what it can do.

NTFS Mounter. This is an unsupported function of Snow Leopard but perhaps it will work better in Lion or Mountain Lion. Has anyone used it in Lion?

Connecting to Xbox Live with your Macbook – General FAQ for Xbox 360, New Xbox Experience, Xbox Live, Apple Inc. – StumbleUpon. I wonder how many people are doing this? I wonder if the instructions are similar to connect to Playstation Network?

Microsoft Stores Are Very Sad Places – Forbes – StumbleUpon. Has anyone you know been in one? I haven’t ever been anywhere that had one. I will visit one if they become convenient, but I won’t go out of my way for it.

AppleInsider | Microsoft exec admits Windows Phone was response to Apples iPhone – StumbleUpon. No surprise here. They have been copying Apple almost since its birth.

Rebuild the Outlook for Mac 2011 database to resolve problems. I had a friend who had this problem and his Option key wasn’t working to hold when you would start Outlook. So this article mentions another way to do this. Nice work!

Even professionals overlook things occasionally. Not everyone is humble enough to admit their mistakes.

New printing problem with InDesign CS4: Apple Support Communities. Nicely done. Good detective work. So often people answer their own questions.

Wanted to let folks reading this know that I spoke with an Apple tech person and found that the 10.7.2 upgrade apparently is the culprit, and is incompatible with wireless printing to my Lanier printer. I CAN print connected through USB. That’s a work-around for now, but I’ll need to contact Lanier about upgrading their driver

for OS X 10.7.2.

Aisolve over on the Adobe board was also helpful in advising me that if I was able to generate a postscript file (which I was), and able to generate a PDF by distlling it through Adobe Distiller (which I am), then I can safely assume that the problem lies with the hardware, in this case the printer driver. This lines up with what Apple told me.

Thanks, Apple and Aisolve!

Thanks upstateny

Here are the exact steps they had me follow to get to that location: 1.  Click Finder in the dock2.  Press and hold the Option Key3.  Select Go–>Library from the menu bar (still holding down the Option Key)4.  Double Click the Mail Folder5.  Double Click the V2 Folder6.  Double Click the MailData Folder You should see the \

via Lion mail not alerting new mail: Apple Support Communities.

backup session failed: Apple Support Communities. Turns out that if you use Xcode you should reinstall iTunes. I wonder how many people use Xcode?

Yes I read those articles but I found the correct answer elsewhere.

In one of the discussions, someone suggested that after downloading the latest version of Xcode, we better re-download de latest version of iTunes as well.

I effectively downloaded Xcode a few days ago.

So I downloaded iTunes again as stated in the discussion.

And indeed, it works now fine !

So thank you all for your kind assistance.

It a pleasure being part of this community.

In Spotlight, Why can’t I see the file…: Apple Support Communities. Thanks softwater. I wondered about this myself.

Hold down option + cmd.  The path shows up beneath the preview.

I read other reviews of this and so I thought I should try it. It has a boring UI and I think it is confusing as well. I used to use these kind of shortcut programs, but now it seems safer to just directly use the terminal commands. I guess the older you get, the less you trust third parties to do the right things.

via Download.

Sleeping problem with OS X Lion?: Apple Support Communities. Good solution to this problem, but a better solution is what hoongern suggested.

As has been noted by a few people here and there, running “pmset -g assertions” from the

terminal will let you know what is preventing your OS from sleeping

It ranges from file sharing to printer sharing to remote SSH users, etc.

Also, the conditions which prevent a computer from sleeping can vary depending on whether the computer is on AC, or running on battery, which is why some people have solved their issue by unplugging their computer first.

I also made a small app to help with diagnosing the problem, if anyone is interested. Source code is provided. If you don’t trust it, just use “pmset -g assertions”.

Hope Apple fixes it soon.

 

Outlook 2010: Recall A Sent Email Message. Nice to know. Now I just need someone to recall a message to. Don’t you wish you could do this with Bill payments? Oops, your service doesn’t work. Sorry I have to take the money back.

TextSoap. I just used this and it works great. I had a problem with some useless formatting that Microsoft Word applies. Why is Word so convoluted? Doesn’t Microsoft understand that most people are not typographers?

Microsoft Sued For Collecting WP7 Location Data Without Consent | TechCrunch. I was discussing with someone this afternoon about Apple collecting location data and then I run into this. I wonder why companies have a hard time honoring their users choices. Clearly no large company can be trusted.

Bugs & Fixes: Microsoft Outlook annoyances | E-Mail & Internet | Mac 911 | Macworld. This is a nice summary of the faults and benefits of email programs on the Mac. If you are considering what is the best supported Exchange compatible client for Mac, you will want to read this.

I can’t add bookmarks on Safari 5.1: Apple Support Communities. Nice solution. I wonder why Apple preferences get corrupted so often? I have to suspect it is all the Microsoft and Adobe software that is crashing our machines!

Quit Safari.

Go to ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari.

Move the cache.db file from the Safari folder to the Trash.

Relaunch Safari. Try adding a Bookmark.

If that didn’t help, could be the preferences are corrupted ..

Go to ~/Library/Preferences. Move the com.apple.Safari.plist file from the Preferences folder to the Desktop.

Quit then relaunch Safari to test. If that helped, move the .plist file to the Trash.

~ (Tilde) represents the Home folder.

For LIon:   To find the Home folder in OS X Lion, open the Finder, hold the Option key, and choose Go > Library

 

Thanks fcpkeystrokes!

The menu bar app flash frozen caused the problem.

via Flash doesn’t show up in Safari 5.1…: Apple Support Communities.

Outlook 2011 – Hide On My Computer Folders | Computer Boffins. Nicely done! I had a friend who was really bothered by that.

To me, it is that their life means more than just surviving. They somehow make the world a better place.

So using this scale, I have to place Bill Gates as greater than Steve Jobs. Being focused on the needs of the poor and disenfranchised is a noble goal, and one that I find very rewarding. The best times in my life have been when I have been able to give or help others.

This is not to say that what Mr. Jobs did wasn’t worthwhile. iPads are used in many life saving applications, and I have featured many of those stories on this website. However, given the focus of Mr. Gates vs the focus of Mr. Jobs as reported publicly, it seems clear who is doing the most for the poor.

I could be wrong, and Mr. Jobs is doing great things for the poor. I don’t deny that may be happening, but I have not read anything about that. It may be that the future of Apple might be to help medical devices become even cheaper and more functional. I hope that is the case. I appreciate the things that Apple has done to move technology forward, even if people were inconvenienced or it was a rude awakening. While I do not apologize for them, I understand why they acted as they did.

Many things improve the quality of our live. Open source software is something I use everyday. I suppose Mr. Stallman I should thank for that. It is really impossible to give credit to all the creative and hardworking individuals who make the world better. I think the most we can do is have gratitude for living in a time, in which we can witness the growth of peaceful and non-destructive methods of solving problems.

What makes a person great? Making others lives great.

Newt3: Remove Document Protection in Word 2007. Interesting that this is supposed to secure the document but it does not. I wonder how many people rely on Microsoft security to keep their documents safe?

Review: Computer and Registry Cleaners. The winner in my opinion of this list is CCleaner. It normally only takes 10 minutes for an average computer. Everyone who I have used it with has said that they enjoy the enhanced performance after a reboot of using this.

Ok this is good to know. I rarely hear people who use Lasso. What does that offer that Apache doesn’t?

The install of Lion erased my hosts and conf files but the reason my web sharing would not work seems to be that I was running Lasso Professional 8 web server on my machine. I don’t think it’s Lion compatible yet. I disabled Lasso and it’s working fine now… save for the fact that I have to recreate my hosts and conf files.

via LocalHost Hosed.: Apple Support Communities.

Microsoft spells out Office for Mac bugs in Lion | Office | Macworld. This probably won’t prevent most users from upgrading. People usually stick with their messaging system.

Wired How Apple Got It Right – News Markets – Portfolio.com. This is another point of view that doesn’t get as much attention as the mostly positive press Apple receives. It echos some of the things that I said in an earlier article about secrecy and Apples weaknesses.

The user figured out his own issue. Good work.

Apparently Lion’s version of Safari doesn’t approve of the use of the fonts in my boot camp partition, and Consolas was the offending font.

Curiously, when consolas is enabled in Lion, Safari doesn’t render _any_ monospaced fonts, even if the monospaced font selected in Preferences is Menlo or Monaco.

I’ve seen similar issues visiting microsoft sites – here, disabling all of the microsoft fonts on my boot camp partition was necessary.

I really like consolas; I would have already done it if I knew it wouldn’t break on Lion – maybe the commercial version works where the one Microsoft distributes doesn’t; but as it’s a gamble at this point, I guess I’ll have to use something else…

via Fonts not rendering in safari?: Apple Support Communities.

Backup 05 @Digital Outback Photo. Then you want to use ChronoSync. I am trying this out for my own use and it is working pretty well. It has the amazing ability to sync between the Mac and Windows XP or Windows 7! Isn’t that wonderful?

I did for the first time tonight on an old XP system that I have a Craigslist ad for in the NY area. It said it would take a significant amount of time to do and it wasn’t kidding! With a 140 GB drive it said it will take 15 hours! So I am letting it do that now.

If I can’t find anyone who wants it, I guess I will keep it as a spare. It seems a waste to me to throw a computer away that is perfectly functional. Perhaps I could find a charity who could use an XP machine.

I have rescued old systems in past places I have worked and given them to friend and charities. I know computers can be slow, but they are still very useful tools.

Microsoft Making It Easier To Ditch Windows For A Mac. It must no longer be a choice for MS to have compatibility with older versions of itself. It must be a sign that Google and other email providers are threatening its dominance. This is something that could have helped MS maintain dominance, but like always, the arrogance of market leaders is its own undoing.

Gates Puts Feynman Lectures Online – NYTimes.com. This is a really nice gesture that hopefully inspires others. It is touching that people are having opportunities they might not otherwise have. Link in the article above. Gates actually bought the footage from the family. Wow.

How to disable programs that run when you start Windows XP Home Edition or Windows Vista. This worked great with my Windows XP computer and it is also compatible with Windows Vista. Probably works with Windows 7 as well.

Apple iCloud vs Google vs Amazon Cloud Drive vs Dropbox vs Microsoft SkyDrive – Pocket-lint. Interesting comparison. I think that they haven’t used the client versions enough and are not concerned enough about security. Suggesting that Dropbox is #1 IMHO is wrong compared to SugarSync and their better security process. Still worth reading over.

Review: LiveScribe Echo Digital Pen « Rigorous Trivialities

Why would you do this? Many people do not have the experience or time to fuss with OCR software and scanning. In addition, the pen allows some limited audio recording as well. If you are in the publishing industry, I could see how this could save time. I am concerned about the costs in paper/consumables but if you do the math you might find out it is cheaper.

Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper Beta 1.0 « Everything Express. This is a beta product but could replace 3rd party software. I have used Search & Destroy, Malwarebytes, and I will try this next time as well.

I was prompted to download and install it so I did. It took at least 15 minutes to install, not counting the download time. That was the longest install period I have ever seen it take on XP. It asked to reboot and I have. Has anyone noticed any problems using the newest 10.3 (as of the time of this writing) with Windows XP SP3?

It was for Hsoi. Here is what I suggested in his comments:

Have you tried rebuilding your email database? This has fixed the sluggish problems that I have had in the past with Entourage and people who have thousands of messages. Also, Entourage doesn’t seem to like thousands of messages in a folder, so if you keep the totals less than 2000 msg per folder it seems to perform much faster.

Here is the link to the Microsoft KB on how to fix rebuild the database. It’s very easy and generally safe.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2360509

Five Best Email Clients – Lifehacker. This is a nice list of e-mail software. If you master one of these you will probably be very happy. Outlook 2011 for Mac review sometimes looses data, but generally works well.

I like that the first one is to fix the iPhone syncing problems in Windows 7. Do not go to this website. This shows it distributes malware.